On a quiet midweek evening on the streets of the Cambodian capital, the Pyongyang Restaurant is at near capacity. Inside the square room, adorned with dramatic landscape murals, music starts to blast. Waitresses in bright traditional Korean garb drop their trays and pick up their instruments. With great skill they twirl in formation and belt out odes to the homeland. It is patriotic, unapologetic North Korea thousands of miles from the secretive state.

Belying his hard-earned reputation as his country's strongman, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said years ago that his prowess in overcoming adversaries did not lie in his strength, but in their weakness. Hun Sen, 61, has ruled Cambodia for close to 30 years, but now he faces the first real test of his strength in a decade and a half.

Tens of thousands of antigovernment demonstrators marched through Phnom Penh on Sunday in one of the biggest acts of defiance against the nearly three decades of rule by Cambodia’s authoritarian prime minister, Hun Sen. The procession, which was peaceful and stretched for several miles through a commercial district of Phnom Penh, the capital, brought together protesters with a diverse list of grievances: Buddhist monks, garment workers, farmers and supporters of the main opposition party.

In the largest demonstration since the disputed July elections, hundreds of thousands of Cambodia's opposition party supporters marched through the streets of the capital Phnom Penh on Sunday calling for Prime Minister Hun to step down and to announce new polls.